


Lost and found

by LadyKarasuNM



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Brainwashing, Fluff and Angst, Grumpy Old Men, M/M, back to family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-01-12 04:43:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18439274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyKarasuNM/pseuds/LadyKarasuNM
Summary: When McCree gets a suspiciously well informed folder with the whereabouts of Jack, Ana and Gabriel, and the clear message that his supposedly dead father figure, desperately needs his help, he won't hesitate to do whatever it is in his power to bring him back home from Talon.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there! It's been a long while since I lasts wrote anything, and this project of a fic seems to be quite the feat for me, but hey! Lets try this writing thing one more time!  
> This thing is unbetaed, so any mistakes are my own. Constructive criticism is always welcome, as are of course kudos and any other commentaries!  
> I hope you like it, I really do, at least as much as I love plotting and writing this things.  
> Also, the tags may be changing during the development of the story. Nothing big, I can assure you, but just to suit better the content. The current ones are mainly for you to know what to expect.  
> Disclaimer: I don't own Jack about Overwatch, just this flimsy plot and my probable grammar mistakes.

McCree wasn’t sure if It would categorice of late night or early morning when he heard the chime of his comm go off. At first he didn’t pay it any mind thinking it would be the dossier for another job he was about to be haired for, so he rolled back in the narrow bed and pulled the covers up to his ears with full intention of going back to sleep… But the comm chimed again, this time twice, like the person on the other side knew he was purposefully ignoring the damn thing. He sighed reached with his good arm to the nightstand for the beeping artifact, looking at it with his eyes narrowed still from sleep like it had offended him at a personal level.

The first thing he noted was that the letters on the screen were…. Purple? What on Earth? Well, it was probably his still sleepy eyesight, right? From dark blue to purple there wasn’t much colour spectrum to go, after all. He still blinked again a couple of times, just to see if the effect would fade. It didn’t.

Then he read the message.

And read it again.

And again, just for good measure.

It was a dossier, yes, but not about what he had expected. Inside were detailed follow-ups of three persons he thought well dead by now.

The first one was Ana Amari, his old aim teacher and almost mother figure for the good part of his life in Blackwatch. The documents included the medical files on the loss of her cybernetical eye by a shot, the recovery post incident and a trail of contracts and newspaper articles that showed the activity of her new life as Srike, including her last known location only one day ago.

The second name that appeared was none other than Jack Morrison. The old Overwatch Strike-Commander apparently had survived the infamous HQ explosion that torn the organization itself apart back in the day. There weren’t medical files in this folder, so the specifics of how he had survived an explosion of such magnitude and a building falling on top of him weren’t exactly clear. The folder also had a list of targets that he had taken out on his vigilante spree, tho the latest information sowed more contracted activities and less personal matter, which showed a lot of the same locations as Srike’s folder. His last known location was exactly the same as Ana’s, too, unsurprisingly. So they had reunited after “death” and were back to kicking asses together, that was actually spectable for them.

But it was the third name that made him want to smash the device’s screen against a wall and forget he had ever seen anything of that. Gabriel Reyes. His old mentor. The man that had put him out of his very bad ways with a gang, showed him a better life. Given him a new family, even. A man he had mourned like a damn fool for years, apparently for nothing, because he was well and about, like the rest of his damned gang of overqualified, war veteran assholes.

His rage subsided, tho, as he went on reading the damn thing. There was a lot more of information on him than on the other two combined. For what he was seeing, he had been somehow induced into working with Talon, becoming the well known terrorist and mass murderer Reaper for the organization. There were extensive files on his clinical condition, too. The first thing he saw was a video log of a voice he recognized all too well, Moira O’Deorain, their Blackwatch physician. A twisted mock to what Mercy, Angela, did on the battlefield to protect her Overwatch companions. On the entry, the darn witch was watching clinically at a mass of black smoke, talking what the cowboy only could understood as scientific gibberish, slightly catching a few crucial words like “Commander Reyes”, “explosion” and “his smoking form”. There were some other video logs from her after that one, with various stages of solidity from the smoking mass in the middle of the laboratory behind her… Until the last one showed the shadow finally become solid and take a human form. He was turned away from the camera, and his skin was too ashen for him to recognize it at first, but her greeting to him was unmistakable: “Welcome back, Gabriel.”

After that there were only mission reports on him, mainly from the “medical” point of view of the irish geneticist, keeping track of his abilities and something about his cells that McCree didn’t really understand. But as he read, some of the latest reports showed some concerns about his conditioning. Apparently they hadn’t been able to do much scrambling with his brain if they wanted to keep his strategic mind intact to use, so the little work they could do was slowly falling apart. That meant the man had his days counted.

The last page of the full dossier was practically a sticky note in the terms of electronic messages: **Use the help. Get him out of there.** That was all.

And he didn’t need to be told twice. It was his turn to repay his debt with the man. To get him out of that cursed organization that only viewed him as a dispensable asset. And to get him back to family.

In an hour he had already packed his few belongings and was heading for the door, his Stetson on his head, red trademark serape draped over his shoulders and his Peacekeeper secured on his hip holster.

He was a man on a mission now, and the first step for him to accomplish it was finding the two other persons that he was going to need for it to succeed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> McCree goes seeking that much needed help for rescuing his old mentor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sweet Goddess! I never thought this would have such a good acceptance from moment one! I really love how well this is going, and I hope you really like this chapter as much as I liked writing it. To be honest, this is the longest I have actually written on a story, so I'm kind of nervous about how well is it going to end up on the long run, but in the meantime I am really enjoying also the experience of this great and lively fandom.
> 
> Translations from Spanish:   
> Grueso - thick

The next morning found McCree landing into the parisian airport, under a fake name, of course, he was still a quite notorious outlaw with an equally notorious bounty over his head. 

 

The first thing he did was to make sure the old Blackwatch safe house he was planning on using for his stay was uncompromised. Which it was, thankfully for him. He left his scarce belongings there and went for a little recon of the area he would have to search the two veterans through. The worst part for him about that part of his new mission was leaving his loved Stetson and serape back at home base, being them two too recognizable trademarks. 

 

His french was bordering to insulting, as Gerard liked to point out back in the day (“How can you speak Spanish and be so bad at french, a sister language, is beyond me” he used to tell him in mock exasperation), so he posed as the typical tourist. Better play it safe. 

 

His first day passed mainly trying to find out which contract his two objectives were taking out. Apparently it was recovery mission of some data stored on a hard drive, heavily guarded on a centric luxury hotel.  The data would be arriving in two, so he had still time to find where his real objectives were hiding. 

 

He by some bakery, bought some french pastry with too much butter for his liking, and hid his face behind the sweet dough, seemingly munching at it, but in reality examining the people passing by. Their faces, their clothes, their mannerisms… Everything, looking for something out of the ordinary. 

 

And he found it.

 

Some young arab lady with half of her face hidden by her headscarf that was buying bread in the same shop he had bought his pastry, had made a slight face of horror, widening her eyes too much and hurrying to cover more of her face upon seeing him, mixing again with the street crowd rapidly. He didn’t really see her face, but he was fairly sure she was at least involved with the captain and the strike-commander he was looking for, so he started going in the direction he had seen her scurry away, shuffling difficulty in between the mass of tourists. 

 

But his hopes were drained when he lost her track nearing an old office complex. Damned people with the capacity to vanish into thin air. 

 

He then had to retreat himself back into the area where he has keeping base. The sky was getting dark, and he didn’t want to be caught at night unprepared.

 

By the time the bells of Notre Dame tolled eleven times he had everything ready. The streets were mostly empty, better for him to roll onto the adjacent roof without any curious bystanders. 

 

The first thing he did was to head back to the  district he had last seen the arab woman, sensing she had something to do with Ana, probably. 

 

But his efforts for that night were fruitless. he couldn’t find any trace of his two old superior officers. Not that he was actually expecting to find something in the first try. He knew they were professionals, better trained than him in covering their tracks. Nobody said this would be easy, exactly. 

 

He ended up going back to his safe house to crash for a couple of hours. He had to rise up early if he wanted to try his plan B.

 

*************

 

The next morning he raised at the crack of dawn, took a quick shower and dressed himself in some civilian clothes. He found his way into the little bakery from the day before. Bought some other little pastry that he was sure he wouldn’t like either. But this time, instead of wondering away from the shop’s door, he stayed cautiously hidden near it.

 

And it sure paid off.

 

Not ten minutes later than the previous day, the same arab woman came to the shop. He approached her cautiously, trying not to scare her off and pull a scene in the crowded metropolitan area. 

 

He neared her side with his best nonchalant air and smiled courteously. 

 

“Good mornin’, ma’am. You speak english?”

 

Her head whiped to look at him, making his scarf fall a little from her face, letting him see it better. She was the living image of Ana when he had seen her for the first time, back at Overwatch. Back when she still had her ebony black hair and her eyes weren’t wrinkled with premature crow feet, as he remembers her before going to her last mission as Captain Amari. 

 

She looked at him, startled like a deer in headlights, before lowering her gaze, clearly looking for a quick way out.

 

“I think you confuse me with someone else.” She replied with a heavy accent, harder than he remembered Amélie’s. 

 

With a face like hers, he then was completely sure of her involvement with his old aim teacher “Don’t think so, ma’am. I need ya to tell ‘em we have to talk, ‘kay?” He asked her with a firm but soft tone, “And sorry for the troubles.” He added as a last thought, letting her dissolve into the crowd once more. 

 

Now he only had to wait. 

A couple of hours later he was coming back to the safe house with some demanded shopping (a man could only eat so much fast food and take out) when he found a little piece of folded paper on the floor, that probably someone had passed through the crack of the door. 

 

It was an address and a time. Perfect. 

 

He waited until dawn in the safe house, then It was time to move. 

 

At ten hours sharp he was waiting on a rooftop, inside what didn’t look exactly the most recomendable parisian neighborhood, back again in his usual gear. He wanted them to recognize him at first sight. He debated between lighting up the cigar he was chewing, but decided against it, too easy to spot for unwanted company.

 

“You gave my niece quite a scare this morning.” Called a feminine voice behind him. He nearly jumped out of his skin for a second, not remembering how sneaky the sniper could be.

 

He spun on his heels to face her, tipping his hat like the southern gentleman he was, “Sorry ‘bout that, ma’am, wasn’t ma’ intention. Jus’ wanted to talk to ya…” 

 

“Well, next time send a damn postcard, kid.” Answered a gruff voice at his side. With the visor and the white hair he was practically unrecognizable, but McCree was sure that was the old Strike Commander. 

 

“I don’t think that’s the kind of talking he wants to do, Jack. Let the boy speak.” She scolded him, and the man had at least the decency to look abashed.

 

“Right…” The cowboy cleared his throat “A couple days ago I got this freaky message, some folders. They were ‘bout ya lot.” He pointed with his hand at the other man “He had a lot of intel from ya, mainly from this past years as 76, all your targets that ended up bein’ rats from Talon, your locations…” He could see the other man’s frown in just the little part visible of his forehead. Yes, he would be pissed off too if he had been tracked like a noob like that. 

 

He then turned to the woman “From ya it had lotta medical files from when your eye, by the way, sorry ‘bout that…” He added casting his gaze down, a slight tone of pain and sympathy in his voice “It also had your record as Srike, everythin’... It got my goose at first, ya know? That’s how I knew where to look for ya, the file told me.”

 

“So you have come to tell us that we’ve been tracked like a couple of scholars missing class? That’s it?” Morrison interrupted, getting a severe glare from Ana for interrupting him.

 

“Mind your manners. I’m not much happier than you with this, but don’t kill the messenger, he clearly just wanted to do good and warn us, right Jesse?” He started with a scolding tone but softened it for talking to the cowboy, who nodded with respect. 

 

“Yes and no, ma’am. The  _ grueso  _ part of the folder wasn’t from any of ya. It’s from Reaper, the terrorist. Ya know who he’s, right?” He asked looking alternatively to both of them. 

 

“Yes, of course we know who he is. What is with him?” She answered, not revealing anything on their part.

 

“Ya know who’s behind that freaky mask? Darned Gabriel Reyes, or well, more or less for what I saw...”

 

“That we also know…” The gruff voice answered him this time, with the most fake neutral tone McCree had ever heard.

 

“An’ ya know he was mind conditioned to enter Talon?” He shot back at him. He presumed the man felt Gabriel’s change of side as a betrayal, so he was going to show him the truth, and forcefully if he was able to as a little revenge for how poorly he treated the Blackwatch commander back in the day.

 

The look of shock he couldn’t see it behind the mask, but Ana’s face was more bare than his, and probably equally surprised “I’m sorry, but what?” She got to almost stutter.

 

“Yeah, I have proof! It was all in the folder. The videologs of that darned Moira witch, how she gave him the shady Reaper powers through the nanite experiment, but also used it to mess his mind. Or that’s what I got from the videos, but I can show the to ya, probably gonna understand a lotta more than I.” He got a disbelieving look from her, but it was Jack’s voice who answered him this time.

 

“And what good will it do now? He’s already gone for that matter, right? That irish crazy bitch scrambled with his brain and now he’s on their side.”

 

“Hold yer horses, pardner. That’s where I was going… ‘Parently they couldn’t mess with his head as permanently as they would have wanted, and now it’s fallin’. An’ personally I don’t wanna know what Talon do to their unloyal people… So, here’s the situation, Reyes’s on a tight spot, he needs our help to get him outta there and back to his late asshole self. I’m gonna go help him, that much ya can count on, but are ya gonna come with me?”

 

At the question both veterans looked at each other, having what was clearly a silent conversation between them. After a second, the gruff voice spoke, but his tone wasn’t as unnaturaly neutral as before, but lighter, more like how the cowboy remembered the old Strike Commander’s voice. “We would like to see those files.” It wasn’t an explicit yes, but he knew in that exact moment, he had them on board.

 

“Sure thin’, pardner, let’s go fetch ‘em.” 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Help can come at the most unexpected of times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! I's really really sorry for the long month of waiting for this chapter, but I was having some important health issues and my mind wasn't exactly up to speed with for writing...  
> Also, I'm sorry if Soldier seems a little OoC for now, I promise it intended and it will evolve during the fic's arch.   
> A part from that, just enjoy! Also, kudos and comments are always welcome!

McCree ended up guiding the two veterans through the rooftops of Paris to his safehouse, tho he knew they had planted their little note themselves, so they already knew where he was staying. 

 

When they got to the apartment he went directly to lift one of the loose floorboards beside the nightstand. Underneath it there was a tiny safe box, he opened it and got out his comm. He closed the case, put back the floorboard and turned to put the device on the small living room table.

 

McCree could feel two pair of eyes glued to his back while he worked on retrieving the folders from the message and displaying them on the holo screen for all of them to see. 

 

“There ya go!” He exclaimed, a little too smug, when he got everything set. He started with Soldier’s file. “Here ya can see yer life an’ all. Yer hits, where ya have been… Anything not adding up, sir?” The cowboy asked him while passing the documents about his later life. The soldier only did a negative gesture with his head. 

 

“Freaky enough, everything is correct… I’ve been tagged like a damn fool…” He answered slightly in awe at the screen. 

 

“Ain’t jus’ ya. Whoever got all this has gotta a lot of intel on us all…” The younger man tried to appease him, changing the folder to Ana’s. “An’ this is yers, ma’am…” 

 

The woman stared at all her medical files, some of them not even she had been able to see before. “And you say you don’t know who sent you all of this information, right?” She started on a calmed tone, looking through her own file with curiosity. McCree just shrugged. 

 

“No, ma’am, this jus’ appeared in ma’ comm one mornin’. That’s all I’ve got” He neared the device again, asking her permission with his demeanor. “Wanna go to the main part?” She stepped back at his request, letting him access the device again. 

 

The moment the first videolog of Moira was put on screen, the old soldier went absolutely rigid. He couldn't believe he had let that start happening under his own nose. And to Gabriel, of all people. His Gabriel. His best friend since he set foot on a military camp back when he was just an eighteen years old kid with too bright blond hair and too much hope in the world. The man that had gone to Hell and back with him. Suffered the SEP with him. Built Overwatch with him.  _ His  _ Gabriel. And he was seeing now how the man was being used as a guinea pig by a Talon bitch playing god, not only with his body again, but also with his mind. 

 

He tore his mask off, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes, trying to take deep breaths to calm himself. He couldn’t believe it. His best friend had been practically dying in front of him for more than a year and he hadn’t even noticed, too preoccupied with his own nose up to the UN’s ass to see beyond it. He couldn’t believe himself, how selfish he was. How stupid. How ignorant. He should have known, should have seen, should have listened…

It wasn’t until a small hand tugged at the fabric of his jacket in his shoulder that he came back to the present world full force, realizing he had been hyperventilating the whole time. He unclawed his hands from his own hair and passed them over his face, trying to regain control. 

 

After a moment, he raised his sight to look at the egyptian in front of him, his usual cristal clear blue eyes, reddened with unshed tears, “This was all my fault. I need to help him. I couldn’t save him before, I have to do it now.”

 

She looked at him with a soft expression in her remaining eye, tightening her grip on his jacket shoulder, “We will, Jack. We will find the way to bring him back home, okey?” Her voice warm but firm, not leaving any place for questioning. She turned to the cowboy, who was trying to make himself as small as he could, feeling he was intruding on a scene he shouldn’t have been watching in the first place, too intimate. “Jesse, can I have a closer look into Gabriel’s file? I know medicine isn’t exactly your strong suit, so maybe I can make a little more sense of Doctor O’Deorain’s medical opinions…”

 

He could only nood, powering off the device and giving it to the old captain, “All yers, ma’am. Tho if that means yer on board with this, i think imma go get ma’ notes on Talon’s activity. Ya two work on that chicken scratch of a medical thin’ and I’ll go find him. Ya okay with it?” He looked at both, looking for confirmation before practically bolting from the room, not liking at all the atmosphere the Soldier was creating.

 

The woman nodded once, taking the comm, “Sounds like a plan.”

  
  


*************

 

Two weeks had passed since the meeting between the three vigilantes, and frustration was beginning to be something palpable between them. 

 

They had holed up in an old house on the outskirts of Paris. Apparently it belonged to Ana’s sister but had been unused for quite some time, so they were safe to use it for the time being. 

 

The younger of the three had taken up one of the rooms, using it as an enormous blackboard where he was making a map and connecting dots of places where sightings of Reaper had been reported, trying to find a pattern for intercepting him. 

 

The other two had been going over and over the logs of the irish geneticist, trying to decipher her notes about the brainwashing part of the process. The smokey powers part would have to wait for another time. But apparently their attempts weren’t exactly successful, and the fights were more and more common between them. 

  
  


“And how the hell am I supposed to know what this “snipatical recalibration” nonsense is supposed to mean?!”, McCree heard the other man spat in rage, probably caused by his own frustration. 

 

“Weren’t you supposed to have a nurse degree that you were so proud of back in the day?” She retorted, voice firm but with a hint of tiredness in it, “Well, now is the time to put it to good use!”

 

“Field nurse! It means I know how to dress a wound effectively on the battlefield without cutting someone’s circulation and causing them to lose a limb! But this is doctorate stuff! I’m a damn soldier, Ana, this ain’t what i was trained for!”

 

That was scalating rather quickly to his the cowboy’s liking, so he went to the other room, knocking faintly on the door even tho he was sure both could hear his spurs nearing them when he walked there. “Hey, pal, I reckon we all shoulda maybe take some shut eye. We’ve been at this too long and we are as useless as a legless horse on a race…”

 

“We can’t sleep while he is out there, being in peril every minute that ticks by!” The other man retorted, shouting at him. 

 

“Hey, Jack, calm down.” the woman interceded, making him lose a fraction of his tension visible on his shoulders. “The boy is right, we should take a break, have some rest. Our eyes and minds are weary and is clouding our judgement. Maybe tomorrow we can think of someone who can help us with the technical problems we are having, all right?” She said as she started gathering the datapads with which they were working to keep them out of the soldier’s reach. 

 

The older man was clearly about to retort something, mouth opening as if to give a full speech, when he was suddenly interrupted by an electronic chirping. He closed his mouth with an audible clack, looking confused at the offending comm lying on the table of the room. But when he started to move to reach it, another chirp stopped him, followed shortly by a third one, this time coming from Ana and himself. They all looked at each other in confusion as they reached each one for their own devices. 

 

Their first reaction upon seeing the message was pure uncomprehension of what they were reading, and after that, the sinking realisation of what it was.

 

The Recall.

 

Amari was the first to speak, tone lighter than what even she would have expected from herself from the news, “I think that solves our problem of finding help for our current predicament, don’t you think, boys?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Going back home can be a little bittersweet, but people forgives, and family don't end in blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm really really sorry! I had this chapter almost finished for two months sitting in my computer but couldn't find any time at all to finish it! But in the end, here it is!   
> I hope you enjoy it, and I think this is going to be the last "short" chapter, since from here the main plot thickens and the secondary arch enters through the side and all.   
> As always, love you to bits, my sweet readers!

After the unexpected news, it took Ana and McCree several attempts at calming the old soldier, various more threats about sleep darts and an actual sleep dart, to finally stop the man from bolting out the door and trying to go solo for the mission.

 

It was clear that he didn’t exactly like the idea of going back to the organization that basically killed Gabriel and him, but Ana was right and, deep down, he knew it. If the Recall had been launched, the first to fly there like there was no tomorrow would be Angela Ziegler, one of the most brilliant medical minds of her generation. And if anyone was capable of understanding whatever Moira had done and written in those papers, that was her. She had shared a lab with her for several years, after all. 

 

And that’s how they found themselves on a two days road trip across France, Spain and, finally, entering British soil: Gibraltar. 

 

McCree got out of the car and stood in front of the main gate, waving his hat in front of the main door’s camera to get the building inhabitants’ attention. He could hear a little commotion while the door opened, and a quick blue flash later he found himself with an armful of british pilot. 

 

“McCree! I knew you’d come, luv’!” Tracer greeted him excitedly.

 

“‘S good to see ya too, little minx” He answered her with a breathy laugh, returning the hug “Hey, I need ya to do me a favor, could ya?” He waited until she nodded, “Good, gather everyone. I’ve got a lotta news for ya folks. Better if we get on the same page first, right?” He asked of her with one of his easy smiles. Tracer just beamed at him in response and darted to do as he said. McCree got back in the car, drove inside the Watchpoint’s garage and all of the occupants headed to the conference room. 

 

Ten minutes later he was entering the not as crowded as expected conference room with the two veterans on tow, Jack’s mask nowhere to be seen, leaving his scarred face wide open. The cheerful greetings that had started when the members of the Recall saw him quickly faded into a chorus of outrage, horror and disbelief upon seeing the figures accompanying him.

 

“Jesse, luv’...” Tracer started, not quite sure of what to say.

 

“I hope you are damn ghosts or I will kill you myself for real this time” Interceded Törbjorn, practically crawling on top of the table with outrage, only kept from doing so by Winston’s enormous hand on his back, retaining him. 

 

Ana shot him a warm smile, “Not at all, dear, we are very much alive and back.”

 

“Yeah, an’ they ain’t the only ones. So please, kindly sit back and lemme talk, alright?” McCree interceded, taking a deep breath for patience. The engineer glared at him, then at his two old friends at his back, but sat back in his chair and said nothing more. “Appreciated.” The cowboy thanked him with a courteous nood of his hat. 

 

“First of all, as ya can guess, we’ve come to join y’all. Overwatch has always been ‘bout helping people, and Lord knows we all need help one way or another…” He inhaled again, chewing at an unlit cigar in between his lips, “ an’ because we lot here like to help folk we three bring ya a case.” His mechanical hand reached down to the pocket in his jeans and got out his comm, fidgeting with it in his hands. “Some weeks ago I got this message with a lotta info ‘bout Reaper, the Talon terrorist in a clack coat. Ya know who I’m talking ‘bout, right?” He scanned the room for confirmation, receiving various noods befor continuing, “Well, ‘parently behind the freaky mask there’s none other than Gabriel Reyes. Why the man’ld work fer Talon? The same as Amélie, ‘parently, mind control. Problem with him’s that they couldn’t scramble his brain fer good ‘cause they wanted him sharp in battle fer stagies or some shit like that, and whatever mojo they did ta him ain’t as strong as hers an’ is falling.” He looked at his sides, to the veterans flanking him, and set the device on the table before resuming the speech, “Here I’ve proof of everythin’ I’ve said. An’ here comes the mission: we’re gonna bring Reyes back. The three of us’ve been workin’ together fer it, but it ain’t easy task, and we need help. Fer starters. we can’t get the medical records clear, and I reckon here are some of the most bright scientist to ever be. Could ya help us?” The last part was said in a softer tone, sweeter, trying to appeal to their pity at least, his gaze clearly roaming to meet Ziegler’s.

 

Everybody started looking at each other, not knowing what should they do. If it was bad intel they would be bringing a mass murderer in their own walls, but if it was true… One of their most cherished comrades needed their help. 

 

Angela was the first one to break the tense silence. The doctor reached for the comm that still lied on top of the table, “You say here are medical records and proof of ‘vat you just told us?” She asked, curiously looking at the device in her hand without powering it up yet. McCree nodded once. “Then I will give it a look, see what it can tell us about the condition of our ex-commander. I also may have a friend who can help with this, he has already worked with Talon technology and methods, so he may be useful to us.” She  said, looking at the three of them with a warm expresion. “We will do ‘vatever we can to aid.”

 

Relief washed clearly upon the three standing persons at her words. “Thank ya kindly, Angie. We wouldn’t be able ta do this without y’all.” The cowboy answered with a bow of his hat and a wide look to the room, making sure everybody got included into it. 

 

“Don’t thank us yet. Besides, ‘ve are a family right?” Her hopeful smile was encouraging, more so when she directed her to Jack and Ana, “It is good to have you all back.” 

 

Everybody agreed with her and started rising up from their seats until Winston, clearly uncomfortable with whatever he had to say next, spoke. “Erm… Morrison… I was the one currently acting as Strike-Commander because I started the Recall, but since you are here now…”

 

“Not a chance.” The old soldier deadpanned, “I ain’t going back to that chair even if my life depended on it.” His brisk answer and the stunned reaction from the gorilla were so sudden that McCree couldn’t hold it any longer and burst out laughing, liberating all the tension he had accumulated during the meeting and passing his contagious laughter most people in the room. 

 

He neared the big ape and slammed a hand in his back, still cackling slightly. “Think ol’ Jack here got his fair share o’ leading fer a lifetime last Overwatch. An’ I reckon yer gonna be an improvement! At least ya know how Athena works, unlike cranky pants here, that couldn't even schedule with her a coffee, let alone an appointment!” He quipped, trying to rise the spirits. Thing that worked marvelously, even making Ana smile with the memories.

 

“Fuck off, kid” Was the only answer he got from the old commander before he went for the door, “What I’m taking back are my old quarters, I’m done sleeping in cots like I’m back in basic.” He called back, practically from the corridor, earning another round of snickers and some comments along the “grandpa” lines from Lena. 

 

Looking around him, McCree could practically see how the odds for finding and saving his old mentor in time were rising by the minute. Angela was right, the were a family, smaller and a little dysfunctional, but a family nonetheless, and that meant he had more people to fall back on. They were going to be ok.


End file.
